


Get Shisui

by DoodlesOfTheMind



Category: Naruto
Genre: Coming of Age, Gen, Itachi: Before and After ROOT, Not Strictly Canon, pre-massacre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 06:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6363649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoodlesOfTheMind/pseuds/DoodlesOfTheMind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Get Shisui. It was a common refrain throughout the Uchiha compound, though its meaning had shifted a number of times over the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get Shisui

_Get Shisui._ It was a common refrain throughout the Uchiha compound, though its meaning had shifted a number of times over the years. Once, so long ago now, the messages would come by way of one of the head family’s summon-cats in the middle of the night, and Shisui would wake with a start. The five-year-old boy would throw on his clothes, leave a hasty note for his father, and sprint the short distance to the Uchiha manor, where a worried Lady Mikoto would be waiting on the porch with a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms. The little child didn’t cry the way most infants did, he didn’t scream, he didn’t make much noise at all, but tears would fall down his cheeks at night when he couldn’t sleep. It seemed that only Shisui’s touch and quiet voice could lull him back to peaceful dreams.

Shisui would take the baby with the careful reverence that everyone displayed with the newborn heir, rocking him gently and singing in his Kiri-born mother’s native tongue until he calmed down. Often enough, Shisui himself would fall asleep on the head family’s sofa, baby Itachi cradled in his lap. Lady Mikoto said it was his shinobi instincts that prevented him from dropping the child when he was unconscious, but Shisui privately thought that maybe, just maybe, his clan Lord’s wife might be wrong about this one thing. It wasn’t because he was a loyal son of the Uchiha line and a ninja in training. It was because there was no way he would _ever_ allow harm to come to Itachi.

 

As Itachi grew up, the words changed somewhat. The Third War came to a close, and the fighting spilled over the high walls that encircled the Uchiha compound. In the months after the sacking of Konoha, Itachi had become half feral, hiding in the ruins and slaughtering anyone who came near little Sasuke without wearing the hitai-ate of the Leaf. Both of the head family’s children had been presumed dead until after the carnage, when they’d been discovered by a pair of ANBU soldiers.

He was never the same after that, and it became common knowledge that the little heir hated it if anyone came too close to him. He would jump out of his skin if you tapped him on the arm to draw his attention, or stare at you blankly if you raised your hand to offer him a high five or a fist bump. Worse, if he got hurt, he wouldn’t allow anyone to come near enough to help him. Anyone but Shisui, that is.

If Itachi fell and sprained an ankle or took a deep wound during his weapons training, his clansmen would stay with him to ensure that he was safe, but only Shisui was allowed to flash-step to his side, slip an arm around his shoulders, and carry him to a medic. He quickly learned that he had to stay in sight as Itachi was healed, or the child would struggle madly until he escaped. It wasn’t as concerning when he was still in the Academy, but as the little prodigy became stronger and stronger, it became clear that no one could control him without putting both Itachi’s life and their own in danger.

 

It wasn’t until he made Chunin that he learned to control himself, and only because he no longer had Shisui to rely on when he was running missions halfway around the world. Now if someone touched him, he just went dead still and glared at them with crimson eyes until they backed away. Not that many people dared to do something like that. It made Shisui’s heart ache to see how many people were afraid of the young heir. Their cousins said that he was brave to spend so much time with the strange little boy who would lead their clan someday, and even Lady Mikoto had quietly thanked him for his patience and understanding with her son. They didn’t realize that Shisui had no desire to do anything else. Sure, Itachi was strikingly intelligent and probably the most powerful shinobi to be born in the last century. He had his quirks and he was a bit intimidating, but he had never given anyone cause to truly fear him.

Well, no loyal comrade of the Leaf, anyway. Already, Itachi was running upper-level missions at an insane pace. Hardly a week went by when he wasn’t expected to do something that he shouldn’t even _know_ about yet. Theft, murder, torture, infiltration... Officially, Itachi had completed over a dozen assassinations by the time he was eleven, and that count didn’t include collateral damage or kills made in pursuit of another goal. When he came home now, he tended to avoid the Uchiha manor and go to his secret place on the banks of the Naka River. No summons came for Shisui to drop everything and run to his side, but when he caught word that the young heir had returned, he did it anyway.

He’d find Itachi at the river’s edge, often still covered in the evidence of his last assignment, blood and worse things caked into his hair and untreated injuries marking his slender body. His heart would shatter at the sight, but he’d have to force himself to sit silently beside the boy until Itachi acknowledged him. If he pushed too soon, Itachi would vanish into the air and no one would find him for days. When he was ready, though, Itachi would permit Shisui to lead him home, frequently under the cover of a genjutsu to hide the mess. The older Uchiha would gently wash him and bind his wounds as Itachi told him in halting words what he had done this time.

Once it was, _I lost a man today._

 _My target was a child_ , another time.

 _I don’t understand why he had to die,_ became the most common lament, often coupled with, _I should have found another way._

_There must be another way._

 

Then Itachi was selected for ANBU. Shisui screamed at Lord Fugaku and the clan Elders not to do this to him, begged them to allow him to refuse the offer, and all it had gotten him was a round of hellish genjutsu torture for disrespecting his clan Lord. Itachi hadn’t been there, thank the gods, but the clan’s little genius worked out what his father had done within two seconds of seeing Shisui that evening. Itachi never went home again, and Shisui immediately surrendered his little bedroom for the boy’s use.

Within a month, Itachi stopped going there as well, preferring to sleep in the ANBU barracks when he was in the village at all. Shisui heard the rumors of the Crow, the brilliant child soldier. The shinobi whose expert political maneuvering had single-handedly prevented the tensions with Kiri from devolving into another war. The boy who could take out an entire armed camp without aid. The Crow became someone Academy children dreamed of becoming, someone their own age who was already so powerful and respected. The Crow became someone Shisui hated when he saw what he had done to Itachi.

Now, instead of a summon-cat from one of his clansmen, the messages were brought by one of the ninken in the employ of Itachi’s Captain. Hatake Kakashi was a hardened veteran of the Third War, but he genuinely cared for his comrades, and he had taken an almost paternal attitude toward the youngest of his squadmates. It wasn’t rare for Shisui to find a pale, trembling Itachi curled up on the older man’s sofa with two cups of tea and a note that said simply, _Don’t ask questions. Just take care of him._

 

When Itachi was promoted to Captain of his own squad, they didn’t celebrate. Shisui cradled Itachi against his shoulder and let him weep for the first time in years. After that, he didn’t see him again for six months. Not even Kakashi seemed to know what had happened to the boy.

Then, out of the blue, Itachi stepped through the gates of the Uchiha estate. Except it wasn’t Itachi. Not the Itachi he remembered, anyway. This young man was taller, stronger, and his onyx eyes were empty of life. Well, not entirely empty. When he thought no one was looking, a spark of pain would slip through the mask.

Shisui was there when Fugaku told Itachi that the Uchiha planned to overthrow the Hokage and the village council, to take back what should have been theirs from the start. And Itachi didn’t even blink. He asked his father only one question. _Is there anything I can do to prevent this?_ The words were tired, toneless, as if he had known the answer already, and he bowed his head in assent when Fugaku said that it was his duty to fight for his family.

Shisui chased him down afterwards, but this new Itachi didn’t fall to pieces in his arms. He didn’t...anything. He was like a rock in a storm when Shisui shouted at him, shoved him, and eventually drew his blade against him. _Where have you been? What did they do to you? Answer me, damn it!_ And for the first time in his life, Itachi didn’t.

The little soldier laid a finger along the tanto blade resting an inch from his throat and murmured, “If only you had the strength to use this. It would save so many.” Then he turned his back on him and walked away.


End file.
